The possible uses for electrical connectors which can be made-up and separated underwater are about as varied and limitless as possible uses on land. Fields which come immediately to mind are underwater petroleum wells; subsea mining and mineral recovery; underwater welding; penstock, caisson, tunnel and dam construction; waterway and vessel repair; connection of vessels to one another or to fixed structures such as deepwater tank farm buoys.
There are additional possible uses in non-submerged, yet wet environments ranging from ship decks to automatic car washes and automated low seam deep mining of coal where the intrusion of water between connectors being made up can cause short circuits, electrical fires, equipment failure, explosions and other hazardous events.
Heretofore, most electrical connections needed underwater and in other wet environments have been made up and hermetically sealed while dry. Repeated disconnection and reconnection requires recovery of the whole connection from the wet environment; make-up and separation in the wet environment are not possible.
One existing partial solution is to provide a dry work chamber and to make and break the connection only within the dry work chamber. This technique obviously has limited applicability.
Another partial solution is the use of elaborate sealing arrangements for each connector half, coupled with the use of divers to manipulate the connector halves and sealing arrangements as the connector is made-up and separated underwater. The use of this technique is limited by the expense of divers and the lack of good diving weather alot of places too much of the time.
During the preparation of this description, a search of already issued United States patents was conducted which produced the following collection:
______________________________________ Patentee Patent No. Issue Date ______________________________________ McLoad 3,324,449 June 6, 1967 Wofford 3,593,415 July 20, 1971 Elkins 3,665,509 May 23, 1972 Burkhardt et al. 3,714,384 Januaary 30, 1973 Briggs et al. 3,729,699 April 24, 1973 Webb 3,772,636 November 13, 1973 De Vries 3,839,608 October 1, 1974 ______________________________________